Will God Call Me to a Career I Don’t Enjoy?

pastor john yesterday we talked about living in hope when life seems aimless and specifically when a job is hard or it's just difficult to get excited about we're going to talk about work more today because jobs for many are scarce and many people just take the jobs that they can get in a long time listener to the podcast joshua and vancouver asks this pastor john can a believer ever be called to a life long career for which they do not enjoy pastor john would you say to joshua it's not an easy question to answer the way it's formulated the the main reason is that there is another question which i think needs to be answered first namely would god ever call a person to a life long vocation in which he does not enable the person to have joy would would he call you to a work you can't enjoy that's one question is there a work he calls you to that he won't enable you to enjoy the the way the way the question is posed seems to assume that some tasks that god god might call a person to simply cannot be enjoyed god doesn't have the capacity or the will to give the person he just called into that the joy to do it and my question is is that true is there anything in the Bible that would incline us to believe that if God God good loving Christ sending God calls us to something he would give us the grace to find it rewarding and to find joy in it is that not the way the Bible reads so here's here's the way I would go about answering it Joshua is right to assume that God cares about whether we do what we do with joy Psalm 100 so serve the Lord with gladness that's clear God does not like begrudging joyless service and in one sense all of our lives including our vocations our service to God Paul says Romans twelve eight let the one who does acts of mercy do so cheerfully and he says in second Corinthians 9:7 God loves a cheerful Giver and all of our works should be giving all of our work should be merciful and he says in first Thessalonians 5:18 that we should give thanks in every circumstance and he ups the ante in Ephesians 5:20 give thanks for everything amazing and then Ecclesiastes 9:10 whatever your hand finds to do do it with all your might and chapter 3 verse 22 please yes tease there's nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work so for all those reasons I would say that Joshua is on the right track here for believing that God wants us to find joy in the work of our hands in our vocational Labor's but I think the implication in the Bible is not mainly that we should refuse to work until we find the work that we think we can enjoy but that we should take the work that we can for the good of the family the good of the community the glory of God and then pray our way into the enjoyment of it and shape it in whatever way we can so that it becomes more fruitful and more enjoyable I say that because for example in the early church many slaves were converted to Christianity in the first century in the Roman Empire and it's clear from the way first Peter 2 18 to 25 talks about these slaves is that for them it was often terrible they were mistreated and Peter was helping them to know what to do about that it was not an enjoyable vocation by and large to be sure in first Corinthians 721 Paul says that if a slave can obtain his freedom he should do so which shows that Paul did not consider it ideal that we labor in a role that's miserable nevertheless the main counsel that Paul and Peter gave to slaves and to the rest of us in 1st Corinthians 724 is this so brothers in whatever condition each was called let him there remain with God and the key words are with God in other words whatever work we have the greatest joy about the job is that we get to be there with God he's come to us he's with us every day whatever we're doing he's there he'll help us he'll turn it for our good one last observation those of us in the prosperous West should keep in mind that one of the most surprising features of our culture which visitors from the 2/3 world are amazed at when they come is the stunning number of choices we have choices in hundreds of kinds of cereals and fruits and vegetable and cars and houses and theaters and every manner of appliance and device and we tend to take all these choices for granted most places in the world people do not have 100 possibilities in front of them for how to make a living they may have one or two or three options given their village and the family they're in and the society they're in and therefore the question that was asked represents a very Western question and so I returned to my original reconstruction of the question which I think applies globally would God ever call a person to a lifelong work in which he does not enable the person to have joy and I think the answer to that is God intends to give his people joy and thankfulness and a sense of usefulness whatever he calls them to Paul knew how to be content in every circumstance this is the essence of the Christian life finding contentment in Christ yes and turning every circumstance and all of our work into living worship yeah such a helpful perspective Pastor John thank you we must get that question right Thank You Joshua for prompting this discussion in the first place and Monday we're going to talk about spiritual leadership in the home what does it look like for a husband to lead his wife and family well and as we break for the weekend be sure to check out our podcast homepage to search our archive of questions or to send us a concise question of your own go to desiring God org a forward slash ask pastor and John I'm your host Tony ranky thanks for listening to the a special John podcast with John Piper and have a great weekend and we'll see you back here on Monday you

Channel: Desiring God

Views: 52,706

Rating: 4.9356322 out of 5

Keywords: Desiring God, John Piper, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Christian Hedonism, Ask Pastor John, APJ, work, career, job, lifeless, joy, enjoyment, happy, rest, hope, fun, change, promotion, enjoy, attitude, job hunt, Linkedin, contentment, worship, joyless

Id: jPN73lIHMbE

Length: 7min 57sec (477 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 21 2016